


Late Summer Rains

by stelliferous_sky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Beaches, But no, Cuban Lance, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Keith and Krolia are very close, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mixed-Race Keith, Not Beta Read, Parts of this are based on real-life experiences, Self-Acceptance, Summer, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt, Twin Lance and Rachel, he's so confused, it was meant to be fluffy, we die like warriors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 22:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16880487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelliferous_sky/pseuds/stelliferous_sky
Summary: Keith has always been content surrounded by fictional characters, never been good at socialising. But a blooming friendship that weathers the test of time will make him question everything he thought he ever wanted......and make him face truths that terrify him.[Or, Keith and Lance meet as kids during a summer vacation in Cuba and continue meeting every year.]





	Late Summer Rains

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be an 8k cute, fluffy summer one-shot but that clearly didn't happen. So now you have a semi-angsty 20k fic.
> 
> JUST A FEW THINGS:  
> 1\. Keith grows up with both his parents so he's not as closed off as he is in canon and he probably comes off OOC.
> 
> 2\. For the sake of this fic, let's pretend Pride Marches are held in February. Please.
> 
> 3\. Some of the issues that Keith deals with are sensitive and some drawn from my own experience with traditional Asian family so please be considerate.
> 
> 3\. Acxa is mentioned as one of Keith's few friends. Please don't hate on her.

[Summer 2009]

  Keith doesn’t like summer holidays. Well, no. That’s not true; he likes holidays. Just not summer. The sweltering heat, the burning glare of the sun, the sunburns _._ Oh, dear god. The sunburns. He sits under the giant umbrella, trying to the entire bottle of sunscreen on every inch of his body because without it, he’ll burn to a crisp. No one needs to see that.

  Once he decides that he’s caked himself in sufficient sunscreen, he plops the hat onto his head, the one with the brim wider than the length of his dad’s giant feet.

  “You sure you’ve got enough sunscreen there, bud?” his dad teases.

  See, this is really not fair. His dad wanted to come to possibly the sunniest place on earth in the middle of summer despite Keith’s protests and yet he teases him? Keith scowls.

  “You’re missing a spot,” his mum adds with a smile. She inches closer. “Right here.”

  He doesn’t get away fast enough before her fingers dig into his sides and tickles. He rolls around on the towel, laughing and smearing cream all over it.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to swim?” his dad asks again for the eleventh time that day. Keith’s been counting. “What’s the point of coming to a beach for vacation if you won’t swim?”

  “Yeah, but _you_ wanted to come here, Dad.” And, even if Keith is to really try to enjoy himself, there’s no way he is going out in the sun on the first day of his week-long vacation. Maybe on the last day he’ll consider it. “I’ll just watch the view.”

  “Suit yourself,” Krolia says, shrugging her sundress off to reveal bathers underneath. “If you want to join us, you know where to look.”

  Dad asks, “Will you be alright by yourself?”

  Keith nods. He’s a big boy. He’s going to be in double digits next year.

  “Stay out of trouble, okay?” his mum says with a pat to his head.

  Keith gives her a look that says ‘when have I ever been in trouble’ because that’s absurd. Keith doesn’t _do_ anything exciting enough to get in trouble. All he does is sit and read and secretly hope some other kid on the beach is overly friendly enough to come drag him away to play.

  Both his mum and dad smack wet kisses on his cheeks that Keith pretends to be grossed out by and wipes away before they’re disappearing to the edge of the water. Then it’s just Keith. All alone. On a beach. Where there are literally hundreds of people and kids.

  Great. 

  At least he’s brought the latest Captain Underpants books to keep himself entertained.

  Keith is okay with that. It’s not that different to school anyway and he’s used to spending time surrounded by books more than people. So he flips open the first on his holiday pile.

  Maybe he gets fifteen, perhaps twenty, pages in before a dark shadow comes flying at him and hits him smack in the head and he falls backwards with a yelp, legs flying into the air and carrying sand with it.

  “ _Dios mío_!” someone cries, appearing on Keith’s side and leaning over. Keith can’t see their face because the sheet of the umbrella is too bright behind their head but he’s pretty sure it’s a boy. Then two more figures appear on the other side. Girls, judging by the silhouette of the hair.

  Keith groans, rubbing his head where it’s just been hit.

  “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” the boy asks.

  Keith sits up and surprisingly, he’s not dizzy. He swears whatever hit him weights a ton though. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Hey, aren’t you the one staying at our hotel?” the shorter one of the girls asks.

  Keith takes a proper look at them all. Various shades of brown skin, freckles and thick mops of dark brown hair. They’re all clearly related but the boy and the shorter girl look even more alike. Like twins. Then Keith recognises them from breakfast this morning. These three, along with an older boy, were talking in very loud rapid fire Spanish between them before one of the staff had to shush them. The boy was the loudest. He was about to throw his sausages at the girls.

  “I’m staying at the El Cielo,” Keith says, praying he’s pronouncing right.

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” the boy says proudly. “My parents own the resort.”

  “Our,” the older girl corrects.

  “Oh, shush, Ronnie.” The boy sticks his tongue out at ‘Ronnie’ then turns back to Keith, smiling as he shoves a hand in front of Keith’s face. “The name’s Lance.”

  Keith unsurely shakes his hand. “Keith.”

  “These are my sisters, Veronica and Rachel.”

  He nods awkward. They’re still standing so he’s looking up at them, his hat discarded somewhere behind him.

  “What are you doing anyway?” Lance asks, eyebrows furrowed as he looks Keith up and down in all his shiny glory from the sunscreen.  

  Keith feels himself go hot. “I was reading.”

  “You come to the beach to read?” Rachel says like she can’t believe Keith really said that. “That’s what adults do. It’s boring.”

  Keith mutters, “Reading’s not boring.”

  “Come play volleyball with us,” Lance says.

  Keith perks up at this, one hundred percent ready to play, but then he realises, “I don’t know how to play volleyball.”

  “It’s easy!” Lance insists with a huge grin, already pulling Keith up by the elbow. “We’ll teach you. You can be on my team.”

  Keith doesn’t have much of a choice as he’s dragged off into the sun while he looks back at the book he left lying on the sand and his parents playing in the water. But he doesn’t mind at all.

  Volleyball, contrary to Lance’s promise, is hard. His hands hurt from slamming the ball and it goes flying everywhere but where he means to but the siblings don’t care because the younger two aren’t much better than Keith himself. Only Veronica, who is twelve to their nine, gets anywhere. Still, it’s fun even though it’s hot, his feet sink in the white sand and they do more picking up than throwing.

  It’s easy to get along with them, especially Lance. He acts like he’s known Keith for years and not a few minutes. He high fives Keith whenever either manages to get the ball over the net that’s twice their height and tries to get him to taunt his sisters. Veronica and Rachel are really nice to Keith but they – at least Keith assumes – tease Lance in part Spanish and part English.

  By the time Krolia and Heath come back, Keith is sweating, hair sticking to his forehead, and laughing that he barely notices the heat.

  “Let’s go swim!” Rachel shouts and she’s already running for the water. Veronica laughs and follows her.

  “Keith, come on!” Lance calls.

  But Keith looks at his parents and he thinks they might tell him that they have to go back now because they’d just finished swimming. But his mum smiles and nods in Lance’s direction. Keith grins and runs after Lance.

  As it turns out, those three are part fish. They swim like they have fins and tails, movement smooth and fluid as they dive under waves and appear a distance away. Keith slowly paddles awkwardly and when the others notice that he’s not a swimmer, they slow down for him. He’s only embarrassed until Lance starts a water fight.

  “Do you live here?” Keith asks after the splashing has calmed down.

  “Nah,” Lance answers. “We live in Florida with our mum and aunts. We only come back for summer.”

  Keith should’ve expected that, judging from their fluent English with almost no accent.

  “Where’re you from?” Veronica asks.

  “Michigan.”

  “We have an uncle in Michigan,” Lance says. Then he dives into a ramble about his larger than life family who lives _everywhere_ , even places Keith swears are made up like ‘Connecticut’. He has two older brothers, one who’s already graduated and working at the hotel, and the two sisters here today. There are a lot of uncles and aunts and Lance lists all his cousins with Rachel and Veronica adding in the ones he forgets.

  Keith listens in awe, slightly dizzy. He only has a handful of cousins in Japan from his dad’s side and Korea from his mum’s, some he’s never met and most he hasn’t seen in years. He thought he was pretty happy with the attention he gets from being an only child but listening to them talk about all those crazy stories and watching them play and bicker, Keith suddenly wants siblings. He wants someone to pointlessly argue with and get up to no good with.

  It’s well past lunch by the time they get out of the water and Keith’s gone red ages ago.

  The McClain siblings are super friendly and not at all afraid of adults. They make friends out of Keith’s parents immediately and they help carry things back to the hotel before they run off for lunch as well.

  “They seem nice,” his mum comments when they reach the designated restaurant near their hotel. It’s her way of trying to get Keith to say something.

  So he provides. “Yeah, they asked me to play with them.” Then he shoves a bunch of lettuce into his mouth in hope that he won’t have to say more. He’s not really sure what to say anyway.

  “You made friends with them really quickly,” his dad adds. “I thought they would’ve been a bit loud for you.”

  “They are but I like them. Veronica’s really cool and Lance is funny. Rachel’s quieter but she’s cool too.”

  “We’re proud of you, Keith, for making friends.”

  Keith nods, slightly uncomfortable now. It’s not that he doesn’t try to make friends at school. He’s just...awkward. He goes to talk to a group of kids and for a few minutes he’d be fine playing with them. Then he sort of gets ignored – maybe not intentionally – because Keith is shy and afraid of barging into already-formed friendships. His parents know that but there’s nothing they can do other than tell the teachers he feels lonely at school. The teachers promise and smile at his parents but once they leave, the smile drops.

  He may not be great at interacting with people but he can read them.

  Before Keith finishes eating, the McClain siblings come tearing into the restaurant with buckets in their arms and the waitresses squeak and look at each other as if in warning for a disaster. (Keith has the distinct feeling that all the locals in the area have been terrorised by the McClain kids for a while now. The life guards on the beach warned them to stay in shallower waters and to not rough-house each other with pointed looks.)

  “Keith, Keith, Keith!” Lance pants. “Are you done?”

  Mouth full, Keith shakes his head.

  “Well, hurry up. We’re gonna collect seashells and Luis is gonna help us glue them into a picture.”

  Luis. That’s either an uncle, a cousin or a brother. Keith can’t remember. He looks to his parents for permission only to find them already giving each other looks.

  “I suppose, we can go into town tomorrow morning,” his dad says. “Go play with your new friends. Don’t forget your hat.”

  Lance punches the air. “Yes! Hurry up and finish your lunch. Do you want help eating?”

  Veronica narrows her eyes at her brother. “Lance.”

  Keith eats faster than he ever has before and soon he’s running off with them, Krolia calling after him to stay close to the hotel. But they go to a different strip of beach from the morning, on the other side of the El Cielo. Here, there are less people probably because it’s not as pretty and there are a lot of seashells poking through the grains of sand. Anyone not wearing shoes is in for a nasty surprise.

  They separate the types of seashells in different buckets so it’s easier when they stick them onto the picture (Veronica’s idea; she’s smart). It takes less than half an hour to fill three sand-castle buckets because they seem to have so much energy, especially Lance. He’s everywhere. Keith sees him, then he turns around and suddenly Lance is there again. He goes all over the beach and yells over the crash of the waves in a mix of Spanish and English.

  When they go back to the hotel, Keith follows the three to an area he doesn’t realise isn’t open for the public until he sees an older woman and two guys standing around a table. Keith recognises the woman as the manager, or at least someone in charge. She was standing behind the reception when he arrived yesterday.

  Greetings get passed around in Spanish and Keith lingers behind, unsure whether he’s welcomed here or not.

  “Who’s your friend?” the woman, presumably Mrs McClain, asks in accented English.

  “That’s Keith,” Rachel says. “His family’s staying here. Keith, come on. It’s just Mamá, Luis and Marco.”

  Mrs McClain is smiling with wrinkles around her eyes, waving him over to the table so Keith shuffles forward, lodging himself in between Lance and Rachel. There are pots of paint set out on the table along with some brushes. Marco’s drawn pencil sketch of a beach on a large canvas of wood and the three of them start dipping shells in paint while Luis sticks them down with a hot glue gun.

  All the while, Mrs McClain passes food around, putting them straight in her children’s mouths because their hands are covered in paint. Conversation never ceases. They keep most of it in English because Keith is there but a lot of Spanish gets thrown around too.

  He finds it strange and fascinating. They’re not at all embarrassed about speaking a different language. Keith can’t speak or understand more than common phrases his relatives ask him on the phone like, “How’s school?” and “What’s your favourite subject?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He’s stopped wanting to learn Japanese or Korean years ago because other kids look at him funny when he speaks to his parents in anything other than English.

  He used to find it embarrassing enough that he’s Asian.

  But here, smack in the middle of two fluent languages, it suddenly feels ridiculous that he didn’t want to know about his own mother tongues. Suddenly it feels inadequate to only know one language.

  They don’t finish the painting that day. Mrs McClain takes it upon herself to track down Keith’s parents so they don’t worry that their son has disappeared.

  That night, as Keith lies on the added cot in their room, he asks his parents to teach him Japanese and Korean and wonders if he should learn Spanish too. Being able to speak not two but _four_ languages, it sounds awesome. When his parents ask about his sudden interest, he tells them the truth. They look more than happy.

~

  When Keith isn’t out with his parents, he spends almost every moment of the day with Lance and his sisters and he doesn’t really mind that they love the sun so much. He just makes sure to put on extra sunscreen and stick to shade when he can, plus that giant hat. They build sand castles and play games on the beach and, when there’s a summer drizzle on the fourth day, run around in the rain. Keith may have also learnt some inappropriate Spanish words that his parents are never going to hear and he thinks, finally, he’s doing something exciting enough to get in trouble.

  Not that he wants to get in trouble.

  He gets through only one of the seven books he brought and that’s only because they went to a place where they had to drive two hours there and back (and also the flight back to Michigan).

  When it’s time to leave, Keith finds himself a little crestfallen as he drags his suitcase out of the hotel. He’s made genuine friends for the first time ever and that was only a week. Lance gives him a jar of shells that he’s painted red (Keith’s favourite colour) and blue (Lance’s favourite colour). He also leans in conspiratorially to whisper that Veronica and Rachel’s favourite colours aren’t there because apparently Keith likes Lance better than them.

  It’s not necessarily true but Keith doesn’t correct him.

  The whole McClain family comes out to say goodbye that evening. Lance grins and hugs Keith tightly as he says, “Come back next year. We’re always here as soon as school ends.”

 

[Summer 2010]

  School’s been out for a week and Keith is still in Michigan. He thinks long and hard and loses sleep over it before he sidles up to his parents after dinner while they watch TV.

  “Mum, dad,” he starts. “Are we doing anything this summer?”

  Heath asks, “Did you have anything in mind, Keith?”

  Keith swallows. “Well, I was hoping we can go back to the place we went last year.”

  “Don’t you want to go somewhere different this year?” Krolia asks.

  Keith toes the spot on the carpet that’s a different colour because he spilled juice on it when he was a toddler. “No, I just wanted to see Lance, Veronica and Rachel again. They said they’re always there.”

  His mum makes a thoughtful face. “Hm, plane tickets will be hard to get this late.”

  Keith feels his face fall and stomach sinks.

  Then his mum says, “That’s why we bought them three months ago.”

  He beams and jumps onto them even though he’s gotten taller and his limbs are starting to poke out awkwardly.

~

  They arrive later this year, towards the end of June.

  Keith worries his lips the entire taxi ride to the hotel because what if they don’t even remember him? What if they decided to go somewhere else this year? He’s brought three books anyway, just in case.

  But as it turns out, Keith has nothing to worry about. He checks in and settles himself in the room. Only a few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door and someone hollering his name at the top of their lungs. He lunges for it faster than Usain Bolt sprints.

  Keith is still taller than Lance by a couple of inches and Lance swears he’ll grow even more than Keith next year. But as it is now, Rachel is taller than both of them and they insist she won’t be smug in a few more years. Veronica looks more like an adult this year. At first Keith can’t pin point what’s different about her but then it’s obvious.

  Veronica has always been more mature than them given that she’s older but now, she doesn’t join in some of their games like building sand castles and chasing seagulls. But it’s okay. They make it work with three people and it’s like Keith never left and that one year never happened.

  Now, they’re even closer. Lance and Rachel invite Keith into their room where they play with superhero ‘action figures’ (Lance refuses to call them dolls and Rachel just rolls her eyes like they’ve had this conversation a dozen times). They lose track of time again and their mums have to come get them for bed.

  Lance looks totally devastated. “Aww, no! Can’t Keith sleep here, Mrs Kogane? Please?”

  For some reasons Keith thinks his mum would say no, mainly because he’s never requested for a sleepover before and he doesn’t know what her response would be. So he’s completely surprised when she says yes and tells him to get ready for bed and take his pillow.

  Mrs McClain makes them all promise to actually sleep and Rachel swears, very seriously, that she’ll keep the boys in check.

  They really do sleep the first night, Keith sharing a bed with Lance while Rachel sleeps in her own bed. At first it’s strange and Keith worries that he’ll kick Lance off the bed because the other boy is sleeping on the opposite end. But the hesitation doesn’t last long before he’s totally out, exhausted and content from the first day of his second vacation with his friends.   

  The second night, he wakes up to Lance shaking his shoulders. The only light comes from the window and it falls on Lance’s grinning face.

  “Come with me,” he whispers.

  Keith rubs his eyes and his mind is still fuzzed with sleep to question anything when he quietly follows Lance out of the room. Then it hits him.

  “Lance, what are you doing? We’re gonna get told off.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re just getting something to eat.”

  Then Lance grabs his wrist and pulls him off down the corridors before Keith can say anything. Throughout the journey into the kitchens, Keith protests quietly. He doesn’t do sneaking-around-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-steal-food. He does wake-his-mum-up-for-honestly-obtained-food. This is crazy. Insane.

  He panics the entire time Lance ravages around the fridge labelled ‘McClain’ (there’s a bigger one next to it) and pulls out juice boxes and a pack of cupcakes with his name on it.

  “Lance, _stop._ Oh, my god. Mum’s gonna kill me. Dad’s gonna take my books. _Lance._ ”

  “ _Keith._ ”

  That’s all he says before he grins brightly and darts out of the room again, opposite the direction they came from.

  “What are you doing now?” Keith groans but he’s following the Cuban kid anyway.

  The hallways seem to be empty except for a few staff on duty. They look at the two kids and Keith almost has a heart attack but they go back to whatever they were doing like seeing Lance sneaking out with snacks in the middle of the night is nothing new.

  Lance leads him outside to the pool area. They’re not allowed to play here during the day because they’d disturb other guests but now it’s pretty much empty and apparently that’s an opportunity for Lance. He circles around the edge and makes his way to the wooden paths that extends over the surface of the pool. He sits down the edge, legs dangling off just above the water.

  Heart in his throat, Keith sits down next to him. “Lance, I don’t like this.”

  “Keith, relax. I do this with Hunk and Pidge when they visited. Here.” He gives a juice box and a cupcake that Keith reluctantly takes. (He’s not sure Lance should be having so much sugar in the middle of the night.)

  “Who are they?”

  “My friends from school. They were here two weeks ago. They wanted to meet you so I told them to come early but you’re late this year.”

  “You told your friends about me?”

  With fingers still colourful from that evening’s seashell painting session, Lance pulls off a bit of cupcake and pops it into his mouth. “Yeah, of course. Didn’t you tell your friends about me?”

  Keith takes a bite out of his cupcake and takes his time chewing while he tries to think of something cool to say. He can’t. “I don’t... I don’t really have friends at school.”

  Lance almost spits into the pool. “What?”

  Keith feels himself go hot. “I have classmates, obviously. I just... Don’t have close friends like you.”

  “What does that mean? You don’t have friends at all?”

  “It’s okay. I prefer reading. Besides, I do have a friend from the police station. Her name’s Acxa.”

  “Police station? Don’t tell me you’re friends with an adult, Keith.”

  “What, no. Acxa’s our age. She’s the Chief’s daughter.”

  Lance looks sceptical. “How do you even know her?”

  “My mum’s a policewoman. I go to her station after school sometimes and I met her there.”

  “Keith, that’s really sad.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “We can share my friends if you want,” Lance offers like he hadn’t just made an offhanded insult to Keith’s lack of social life. “You’re gonna love them. Hunk is awesome. He’s really nice and his hugs are the best. Pidge is really small and adorable but don’t tell him- sorry, her – don’t tell her I said that. She’ll bite me. They both super smart and Pidge even skipped a year.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. They already think you’re really cool.”

  Keith wants to meet this Pidge and Hunk. If they’re friends of Lance, they must be great people.

  “Maybe we can meet next year,” Keith says.

  “I hope so. You’ll get along really well with Pidge. He- _She_ is really sarcastic and she’s got the same sense of humour as you.”

  Keith notices that’s the second time Lance corrects Pidge’s pronoun but he doesn’t think much about it. Lance has a tendency to say whatever comes into his brain without a filter. Instead, he focuses on the prospect of getting two more friends and even entertains the idea of going to the same middle school as them by some miracle that Keith moves to Florida.

 

[Summer 2011]

  Keith doesn’t move to Florida for middle school. He would stay in Michigan because trying to get both his parents to be transferred to Florida at the same time is going to be painful. He doesn’t even know where Lance, Pidge and Hunk live.

  But he does go back to the beach with his family for summer. Unfortunately, Pidge and Hunk won’t be coming down this year but it’s fine. Lance is there and so is Rachel. Even though Veronica doesn’t join in their games anymore, she still pops by every few hours to roast Lance.

  They play the usual games and seashell painting. This time, they make a smaller painting as well for Keith to take home. His parents and Lance’s family start to have dinner together and it’s totally wild. Lance and Veronica won’t get off Keith’s parents because they’re policewoman and fireman, which is every kid’s dream.

  Lance literally yells, “Keith, you have the coolest parents ever!” and offends his own parents who are right there at the table and squawk in mock indignation.

  On the third night, Luis takes the four of them (including Marco) to the outdoor cinemas playing Tangled. At first Lance protests adamantly, saying it’s a girl’s movie. But as soon as the first song comes on, he’s belting out the song at the top of his lungs and Keith buries his face in his hands in embarrassment as people around them give Lance dirty looks.

  Marco then buys his siblings ice-creams and Keith is surprised when Marco hands him one too.

  On the fourth day, Veronica sets up her computer and lets Lance Skype call his friends. At first there’s only Pidge who is on her brother’s computer but Hunk appears a few minutes later, panting and about to pass out. Lance is right about both of them. Pidge is small and sarcastic but she gets Keith’s humour. Hunk is the epitome of a teddy bear and he tries very hard to stop Pidge swearing. It doesn’t work.

  Keith’s only just met these people but, like with Lance, it feels as if he’s known them forever. He’s integrated into their colourful, vivacious group so easily and not once does he feel like he’s intruding.

 

[Summer 2012]

  There’s a room reserved specially for Keith’s family now. He picks things up right where they left off last year. Lance is as tall as Keith now and the Cuban boy won’t stop gloating about how next year he’ll finally be the taller one. If his brothers Marco and Luis are any indication of how tall Lance might get, Keith doesn’t doubt it. It’s really sad but he finds solace in the fact that Rachel is still taller than both of them.

  Keith has saved up the whole year to buy a small camera and he takes more pictures than he can count and fills up eighty percent of his storage in three days. There’s Mrs McClain and Mr McClain at dinner, giving their shares of foods to each other. Luis pushing his girlfriend on the luggage trolley. Veronica and Rachel posing like models down on the beach. Keith’s parents on floaties in the hotel pool. Marco teaching Lance how to do cool things on the surfboard.  

  Yeah, Lance is surfing now. He’s not as good as Marco and Veronica yet but at least he can stand on the board. He tries to get Keith on a wave but this is the one thing Keith won’t let Lance push him into. Lance’s stubbornness doesn’t get anywhere this time and Keith is just happy staying on the beach, taking pictures of them all.

  The camera isn’t that good and the photos are sort of grainy when he zooms in too much but they’re still great. He gets a particularly good one of Lance sitting on his surfboard as he laughs at something Rachel does. The sunset casts hues of pink and gold on his skin and water droplets on the tips of his hair glisten.

  Keith likes that photo a lot.

 

[Summer 2013]

  Lance, true to his words, is taller than Keith by less than half an inch now but Lance is over the moon. His shoulders are broader and Keith’s awkward spindly limbs have nothing on Lance’s.

  Rachel has grown too, hips wider, legs longer and chest definitely more endowed than before. Keith half expects her to hang out with Veronica more but Rachel still sticks to her twin brother. When the two stand next to each other, it’s like a puzzle finally completed. They both look great, albeit in that awkward pre-pubescent way.

  Rachel also blushes more, especially around Keith. It’s kind of weird.

  They do more talking than playing this year, though they still do the seashell painting. (It’s kind of become a tradition.) The three of them would stroll along the beach or borrow bikes from the hotel to ride around town and talk about anything and everything under the sun. School, games, movies, friends. Pidge and Hunk come up a lot in the conversations and they Skype each other at night.

  Keith notices that Lance looks at particularly pretty girls. Keith follows his gaze and finds the girls already looking at them and giggling behind their hands. It’s really weird.

  This year they have a bonfire on the night before Keith has to leave. They make camp on the relatively empty part of the beach with a lot of seashells. Lance’s entire family is there and so is Keith’s, plus a few other people from the hotel Keith hasn’t realised are also McClains. There’s a fire going in the centre of the circle. Latin music plays from the speakers or someone is singing while playing guitar. Food and drinks gets passed around. At least four conversations are happening at any given time.

  Lance has apparently been learning how to play the guitar. He wrestles it from Marco and positions it on his leg with ease. He sings a slow-ish Spanish song and Keith swears he’s never heard someone sing that smoothly without auto tune, even if his voice breaks once or twice.

  Surrounded by people Keith could consider family, sitting in between his parents, pulled into two conversations at a time while listening to Lance sing, he’s never been happier in his life.

  Summer shower drizzles later in the night and the fire goes out but Keith’s happiness doesn’t.

 

[Summer 2014]

_The sun is scorching and the grass is dry._

 

[Summer 2015]

  Everything feels different when Keith steps into the reception even though not much has changed. The lady behind the counter recognises them immediately and checks them in then makes several phone calls.

  Less than a minute later, everyone comes rushing into the lobby. Smiles get passed around and questions are asked and his mum answers them all. Lance and Rachel are last to come in because they’ve been out terrorising the beach and both are soaking wet. But they pull Keith into hugs anyway. He returns the hugs and he feels tilted. Different.

  Wrong.

  “We were waiting for you last year!” Lance says, punching Keith on the arm. He’s noticeably taller than Keith now, as tall as Rachel. “Why didn’t you come?”

  “We were kind of busy.” It’s a vague answer but it’s the only one Keith can give at the moment.

  If Lance and Rachel catch onto something, they don’t show. Rachel asks, “Where’s your dad?”

  “Oh.” He looks at his mum but she’s talking to Mr and Mrs McClain. “He’s not coming this year.” He looks back to the adults and the conversation looks like it’s going sideways. “Can we, uh, get out of here? I want to go ride bikes or something.”

  The twins glance at each other before they drag Keith to their room (not the room his mum booked). Keith dumps his suitcase on Lance’s bed and then the three of them race down to the beach.

  For a moment it feels like nothing’s changed. Keith messes around with the twins as they cross the beach to get to the bike station, talking about the past year (mostly Lance and Rachel). But Keith occasionally makes the mistake of looking to the umbrellas and not seeing his parents there. Then everything falls apart again.

  “Are you okay?” Lance asks when he catches Keith making one of those mistakes.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just wish my dad’s here.”

  They borrow bikes and ride around the town with ice-creams in one hand and ridiculous sunhats – courtesy of a woman who knows Lance and Rachel. There’s easy talk about new friends they’ve made in their freshman year of high school (mostly Rachel and Lance) and the terrible subjects they’ve been forced to take, like social science (mostly Keith).

  Along the aimless ride around the place, Lance throws winks and gives charming smiles at girls who blush and giggle in response. Keith doesn’t have that sort of confidence in this department and his stomach knots every time. He looks at the girls and a few of them give him smiles. Keith supposes they’re kind of pretty. Even Rachel says so (although she’s rolling her eyes at her brother for being such a shameless flirt).

  Whatever the case, it’s hell of a good distraction from the thing that’s very wrong here and Keith diverts a lot of his attention to the way his stomach sink every time Lance flirts.

  As the sun is about to set, the twins lead him to the edge of the town where a low cliff-face gives way to the ocean. The sky is painted in hues of pinks, purples and oranges as the sun drops behind the horizon far in the distance. Keith sits on top of the cliff, flanked by Lance and Rachel, and they pass a packet of chips around. Every few minutes a particularly large wave would crash against the cliff and spray mists of salty water onto them.

  It’s abnormally silent. Keith has learnt that it’s never quiet with Lance around except when Lance is purposefully waiting for someone else to say something. This silence is meant for Keith to fill.

  He’s not sure he wants to.

  He’s spent the entire day trying to pretend everything is normal but the silence is so loud that even the crash of waves and the whistle of the wind is distant, small. The longer it goes on, the more Keith wants to break it. It’s uncomfortable and stuffy and he burns under the attention he’s getting.

  Eventually he sighs. “My dad’s gone,” he whispers, watching the sun fall under the water.

  Rachel sucks in a sharp breath. “Keith, I... I’m so sorry.”

  Lance swears in Spanish under his breath. “I’m sorry too. Do you want to talk about it?”

  He shakes his head but his mouth has a different idea. “He died trying to save a kid from a house fire. Everyone told him not to go back in but you couldn’t tell him anything.”

  “When?” Rachel asks gently.

  “Last summer, three weeks before we were supposed to come here.”

  Lance moves closer so that their shoulders touch. “Mr Kogane was a great man, Keith.”

  Keith scoffs and his words are bitter. “Yeah, he was a real hero. But I don’t need a hero. I just needed him to be my dad and now he’s gone.”

  He was supposed to start high school with both his parents. They were meant to smother him in kisses before he leaves the car on his first day and ask if he needed them to go in with him. He would’ve protested quickly and darted out before his parents got a chance to embarrass him. None of that happened.

  Instead, he took the bus to school and barely said goodbye to his mum that morning.

  “Keith, is there more?” Lance asks because somehow he seems to always know what Keith is thinking.

  “I got arrested that summer.”

  “Shit.” This is from Rachel, who never swears. “What happened?”

  “Punched some asshole that talked shit about my dad because he couldn’t save his sister from the fire, the same one that killed my dad.”

  “That’s low,” Lance growls. “If you were gonna get arrested, Keith, you should’ve done more than a punch. He deserves it.”

  “I... might’ve broken a plate on his head too.” It wasn’t his proudest moment. He’s not even sure why he’s telling them about this. “It was at a supermarket and someone called the police and mum was one of the officers who came. She wasn’t happy.”

  That is the understatement of the century. She’s never looked more disappointed in his life as Kolivan, her chief, put him in handcuffs and took him into the car. She wouldn’t speak a word on the way home at the end of the day after everything’s been settled. She wouldn’t speak to him for a whole week and every time she tried, tears welled in her eyes and she had to leave the room.

  Their house has thin walls. Keith heard her crying.

  Krolia Kogane has never cried before.

  The vacation wasn’t going to happen.

  For the rest of summer, his mum devoted all of her time to work. She hardly stayed at home because everything reminded her of his dad. At the time, Keith didn’t care. He went out on his bike, threw rocks into lakes and found trouble in the form of fights at skate parks. At first it wasn’t intentional. It was just an accident that he crashed into one of the other kids who started the fight. Then Keith learnt to love the adrenaline and having somewhere to channel his pent up anger and energy.

  He ended up at the police station four times before his mum decided he needed a safer outlet and enrolled him in karate classes again. He still spent twenty hours doing community service that summer.

  “How are you and your mum now?” Rachel asks.

  “I think we’re okay. It’s been over a year. I mean, we still miss him but it’s not so bad anymore.”

  It was a long road to get here again. The high school decided that he needed to see the counsellor for ‘antisocial behaviour’ but it wasn’t as if he was starting fights again. He just didn’t really talk to anyone but nothing’s new there. Two months into high school and five months after the fire, he and his mum finally sat down to talk properly. They cried (well, Keith did) and hugged and apologised and Keith slept in her arms that night. He felt more whole than he had in five months.

  Rachel scoots closer and simultaneously, the twins wrap their arms around Keith’s shoulder.

  “Keith,” Lance says. “Have you made any friends in high school at all? And don’t say Acxa,” he adds when Keith opens his mouth. “You said she doesn’t even go to your school. I mean someone you can talk face to face every day.”

  He has no idea where Lance is going with this. “Um, Shiro? He’s gonna be a senior next year though and he’s supposed to be my mentor more than my friend.”

  “Whatever. He’s a mentor so you can talk to him, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Great. Got a phone, Keith?”

  He does now. “I left it at the hotel.”

  “That’s fine,” Lance says. “Look, I’m gonna give you my number so you can talk to me any time you want, okay? But just in case my phone’s confiscated and I can’t answer you, you have to promise you’ll talk to Shiro if you need to.”

  “Lance, what-”

  Lance puts a finger to Keith’s lip and Keith feels his face grow warm. “Shush. I’m being a good friend here. It’s not healthy to live like a lone wolf. And you know what? I’m gonna add you to a group chat with me, Pidge and Hunk too. You can add Acxa too if you want.”

  Keith tries to argue that Lance doesn’t need to do so much for him but Rachel cuts him off with a hand on his knee.

  “Just go with it, Keith,” she says.

  Keith is still looking at the hand on his knee. He knows that any other boy would be excited if a girl like Rachel is openly affectionate with them. She’s pretty and tall and her skin is smooth and soft. Keith kind of wants her hand gone. He knows that’s not normal.

  “Okay, buddy,” Lance says, giving his sister a pointed look. “We should be getting back for dinner.”

  Dinner is mostly okay. No one mentions his dad but it doesn’t even feel like an elephant in the room because everyone’s so good at making them feel at ease. It doesn’t feel like two years has passed until Keith looks at Rachel, Lance and Veronica, the three who’s changed the most.

  Rachel’s moved out of the room she used to share with Lance so now Keith gets her bed that’s pressed in a corner. Leaning against the wall on the bed, Lance Skype calls Pidge and Hunk with his side pressed right up against Keith to get him in the video as well. Keith tries hard to concentrate on Pidge and Hunk, he really does. But Lance’s chest is warm against Keith’s arm and it’s a little distracting because the summer is hot enough as it is.

  “Keith, are you okay?” Pidge asks at one point. “You’re really red.”

  “I-I, uh, I just stayed in the sun a bit too long today.”

  Lance peers at him closely. “You know what we should do afterwards? Face masks.”

  The video call is still going. His heart beats in his ears. “W-What?”

  “Oh, no,” Hunk groans. “Lance, don’t drag poor Keith into one of your skin care routines.”

  Lance squawks at his phone, putting it very close to his face. “Excuse me? You see my flawless skin, Hunk? See? You know how I maintain this perfection while everyone else is breaking out? Skin care.” He turns back to Keith, making his heart jump. “Keith, don’t listen to Hunk. You have great skin and you’ve got to look after it.”

  “Uhh,” Keith says dumbly, subconsciously touching his face. He has great skin apparently.

  In that time, Lance hangs up on Pidge and Hunk, totally unaware of Keith’s internal panic as he takes out bottles and tubs from the drawers of the bedside table.

  Keith finally manages to say, “Aren’t face masks a bit...” The face Lance pulls makes Keith think twice about what he was about to say. He settles for, “Feminine?”

  “So only girls can have nice skin?” Lance asks. “Are we supposed to just settle for flaky, dry skin with pimples like volcanoes? No, Keith. Gender equality. It includes this shit.”

  “Okay,” Keith says because he appears to be incapable of saying no.

  “Now,” Lance says, holding a tub of something in one hand as he kneels on the side of the bed. “We’re gonna need to do something about your fringe. Here, push it back.”

  He hands Keith a headband. Keith unsurely pushes his fringe off his face with it. “Like that?”

  Lance stares at Keith’s forehead and raises an eye. “Huh. You have a cute forehead.”

  “I _what_?” Why is he blushing so hard? Rachel has called him cute before and all he said was ‘thanks’. Lance isn’t even calling _him_ cute, just his forehead, and Keith is flustered? Jesus. That makes no sense.

  Keith pulls himself together for the rest of the routine and tries not to flinch when Lance smears cold cream onto his hot face. It’s actually pretty soothing and he begrudgingly admits it when Lance asks, “See, doesn’t that feel good?”

  Sleep claims them faster than they want.

  The next day, there are bikinis and surfboards involved. Apparently Rachel and Veronica have grown out of once-piece swimsuits and floral patterned bikinis are the way to go now. They are by no means revealing in any way and cover a lot more than what some of the other girls wear and that’s probably why Keith’s eyes don’t wander to them.

  Yep, that’s it.

  Besides, Lance is right there. It’d be weird, like breaking bro-code or something.

  “Come on, Keith. You have to try surfing this year,” Lance insists when he gets back from riding a wave.

  His shoulders have become noticeably broader and the baby fat on his stomach has disappeared, leaving behind faint ripples that water clings to.

  “No, thanks,” Keith says in finality, planting his feet firmly in the sand where water laps. “I don’t do surfing.”

  Lance rolls his eyes because he’s heard that phrase a thousand times before from the same person. “Keith, get on the goddamned board or so help me, I will wax your legs tonight.”

  “I’d like to see you try. I will kick your eyes out of your skull.”

  Veronica scrunches up her nose. “Ew. Thanks for the mental image.”

  “Keith, please,” Lance drawls, blue eyes going wide and round like a wounded puppy. “You don’t have to stand. Just sit on the board with me and we can go out a little. You’re not scared, are you?”

  “What? No.” Yes. God, yes. He’s bloody terrified just by looking at one of those huge waves Lance makes them look like ripples in a pond. But admit that to Lance? Never.

  Keith is an idiot. He marches in the water and tries to get on the board that Lance is sitting on but it’s harder than it looks. He sends both of them into the water.

  “I’ll hold it, you get on,” Lance instructs, shaking water out of his hair.

  Ignoring the flutter in his chest, Keith does as he’s told and swings his leg over the board, settling himself closer to the front. When Lance gets on, the thing wobbles and Keith grabs onto it for dear life, which doesn’t go unnoticed.

  “See, was that so hard?” Lance asks, clearly amused but Keith doesn’t dare turn around to glare. “Now move back a little. We’re tipping to the front too much. You’re apparently heavier than you look.”

  Keith wiggles just a little bit but suddenly Lance’s voice is heck of a lot closer and his breath fans across the nape of his neck. “Good. I’m gonna kick us out a bit, alright?”

  Keith nods because he doesn’t have the words in his mind to respond aloud. Yeah, he’s really scared now. It gets worse the further Lance goes out into the open sea and the rocking intensifies as waves get bigger.

  “Lance, that’s enough.”

  “Hey, we actually came further than I expected. Was that so bad?”

  Keith grumbles, “No.”

  It isn’t bad at all. There are less people out here and the rocking becomes semi-pleasant once he gets used to it. They bob along the surface gently. It’s a stupid thought but Keith feels like a duck. He has mixed emotions about that thought.

  “Why are you so obsessed with getting me to surf anyway?” he asks.

  Lance makes a noise that Keith assumes is accompanied by a shrug. “It’s fun and I don’t like letting my friends miss you on fun things. Except Hunk. The first and last time I did this with him, he almost vomited in the water. Yeah, he’s better off with his feet on the ground.”

  Oh, right. Lance does this for all of his friends. Of course.

  “Pidge can actually stand on a board now,” Lance adds. “I’m a great teacher if you’d just let me teach you.”

  “Thanks but no thanks. Did Pidge come last year?”

  “Nah, we went to Miami before I flew out here. Hey, maybe you can come visit us in Orlando sometime. Come for Christmas. There’s a ton of us there and I can introduce you to my cousins too.”

  “I’ll ask my mum. She doesn’t usually get many days off for Christmas.”

  Lance hums. He goes quiet for a moment and it’s just the sea and the sky and the big waves in the distance. When he speaks again, it’s a bit too close and too quiet. “Keith.”

  “Y-Yeah?”

  “You know I’m here for you, right? We all are.”

  “If this is about my dad-”

  “No, not just that. Anything. You never talk about your friends or your extended family much and I’ve known you for years so it makes me think, you know.”

  Too close too close too close – Keith can’t handle it. He twists around, finding Lance’s face inches away. The freckles stand out on sun kissed skin and his eyes are bluer than the sea and they stare so intensely it leaves all of Keith bare. Oh, this is much worse.

  “I know,” Keith whispers but he doesn’t know what he knows. It’s just that he does.

  “I’m gonna Skype you every Friday night at eight, okay? You’d better be there.”

  “Okay.”

  When Lance retreats, Keith can finally breathe. He lets his lungs fill with the smell of salt and sea and summer.

 

[November 2015]

<13:59 > Lance: where do you live?

<14:02> Keith: Michigan...? I told you

<14:02> Lance: no, dummy! Your postal address

<14:04> Keith: .....why?

<14:05> Lance: dammit Keith. Just tell me where you live

<14:05> Keith: HOW DO I KNOW IT’S EVEN YOU AND NOT SOME PSYCHO KILLER?

<14:06> [photo message received]

<14:08> Keith: okay fine

 

[December 2015]

  Keith’s grandparents come to visit all the way from Korea for Christmas. They don’t really celebrate Christmas but it’s a good excuse to catch up. Keith doesn’t remember his grandparents being so small and cute but it’s been four years since he last saw them and it feels good to know that he’s grown a lot. He knows he’s by no means their closest grandchild but he appreciates that they love him enough to buy a lot of gifts and coo over how big he is now.

  They’re very proud that he can speak Korean more fluently. He’s been practising a lot and only speaks Korean to his mum now. At least, he tries. Some sentences are just never going to happen and he accepts that.

  It’s Christmas day and they’re having dinner when the doorbell rings. Keith goes to get the door but there’s no one outside. Instead there are two small packages on the doormat, covered in shiny Christmas wrapping. The gift tag reads, ‘From Lance and Family’. One is addressed to him and the other is addressed to his mum.

  For a long moment, he can only stare. Then suddenly it all makes sense, Lance asking about his address, sending that picture of him what looked like a store of some sort with Pidge and Hunk pulling faces in the background.

  “Keith?” his mum calls.

  “Coming.” His voice breaks.

  He places the packages on the empty end of the dining table, explaining that they were from Lance. His grandparents ask who Lance is and Keith answers stiltedly that he’s his best friend. A nagging part of his mind makes him feel like he’s lying even though it’s true and he has to grip his cutlery tightly to keep himself from fidgeting.

  _Wrong._

_Wrong._

_Wrong._

  Lance bought him a book; _Illuminae_. It’s signed by both authors. Australian authors.

  Keith adds it to the top shelf he reserves for his favourites.

 

[February 2016]

<12:29> Lance: MR MULLER SUCKS.

<12:29> Pidge: what did he do now/

<12:30> Pidge: *?

<12:30> Lance: HE MADE ME DO TWENTY LAPS AROUND THE GYM!!

<12:31> Hunk: you hit him in the head with a basketball. What did you expect?

<12:31> Lance: HUNK

<12:32> Lance: I DO NOT DO RUNNING. I DO NOT DO LAND SPORT. OKAY???

<12:33> Lance: NOW MY CLOTHES ARE DRENCHED IN SWEAT

<12:34> Lance: AND I DIND’T BRING SPARE CAUSE I THOUGHT I WOLDN’T SWET

<12:35> Pidge: it’s gym???? When do teenage boys NOT sweat in gym??

  Keith smiles at his phone before he puts it back into his pocket, still vibrating wildly every couple of seconds. If the librarin catches him on his phone, he’d probably lose the free period and be slotted in with the Extension Math students. God knows all the teachers want to shove him in enough as it is.

  He goes back to his Spanish work with a sigh. Keith aces every other subject, but Spanish is the bane of his existence and he can barely pull a B. He was really excited to learn at the start of freshman year that he can take it as an elective but now it’s a pain in his butt. The only motivation that keeps him going is that he would be able to understand Lance, who still doesn’t know Keith is learning it. He wants it to be a surprise.

  That doesn’t change the fact that it’s kind of boring and he zones out every few minutes, fingers itching to take his phone out again.

  That’s how he hears the conversation happening one table behind him.

  “It’s fucking disgusting,” a guy was saying.

  “They actually think everyone loves them just because one’s president and the other one is the football team captain,” another adds.

  That’s what catches Keith’s attention because Shiro is the captain and Adam is the student body president. Both are his friends. He turns his head slightly to hear the whispers better.

  “A couple of faggots,” the first guy replies and Keith hears the sneer in his voice.

  It reconstructs everything Keith ever thought about everyone at this school. It’s no secret that Shiro and Adam are very much in love and have been dating for months now. Keith thought everyone was accepting because they’re always friendly to them and don’t treat them any differently. This is the first time Keith has ever heard anyone talk shit about their sexuality.

  Alarms go off in his head.

  Keith gathers all his books and rush out of the library as soon as lunch bells ring. He speeds off to the cafeteria and waits for Shiro, shifting from foot to foot. Shiro comes in with Allura, laughing over something. Keith marches up to them before they have a chance to line up for food.

  “Shiro, can I talk to you? Alone?” Allura is a great friend, all three seniors are, but Keith doesn’t want anyone else to witness this conversation. He doesn’t want _Shiro_ to witness it if possible but alas it’s not.

  Shiro blinks at the urgency in his voice. “Of course. Is everything okay, Keith?”

  Keith doesn’t answer. He leads them down halls after hall until he deems it sufficiently far away from the cafeteria and goes into a classroom, locking the door behind Shiro. The senior gives him a moment to get himself together.

  Keith takes the opportunity to dump his books onto a table and sit on the edge. “You know how you and Adam are dating?”

  “I...am aware of that.”

  Keith takes a little longer to find the next words. “Does... Does anyone ever give you shit for being openly...”

  “Gay?” Shiro offers.

  He flinches a little at the word. “Well, yeah.”

  “Sometimes,” Shiro answers honestly, coming to sit on the table next to Keith’s. “Why?”

  “It’s just... I just heard some idiots talking about you and Adam in the library and I... I guess I wanted to ask if that happens often.” It doesn’t feel like the whole truth, even to himself.

   Shiro puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder and if he notices anything amiss, he doesn’t show it. “Thank you but you don’t have to worry. A lot of people are supportive and even if they don’t agree, they leave us alone. It’s just one or two regressive people who think it’s okay to dictate others’ choices.”

  Keith nods, unable to meet Shiro’s eyes. “Did, uh, did your family have a problem when you came out? Because, you know, they’re kind of traditional.”

  His face is burning and he can’t even look up. This is stupid. It’s just a question. He forces himself to look at Shiro.

  “They had their reservations at first,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “But eventually my parents came around because they want me to be happy.”

  “How about your extended family? You grandparents and relatives in Japan?”

  Shiro purses his lips and Keith hears the answer before he says it. “They’re less accepting but I don’t blame them. They grew up in a different society.” He pauses and something changes in his expression. It goes a little softer, more tentative. “Is there any particular reason you’re asking me this, Keith?”

  “No, not at all.” Too fast to be casual. “I was just wondering. We’re studying human rights activism in social studies this semester and I was wondering about the whole LGBTQ movement.”

  “Then you should come with me, Adam and Allura this Sunday.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Shiro smiles. “It’s a surprise.”

~

  Shiro shows up with Adam and Allura in his black Audi really early on Sunday morning. Keith barely finishes his breakfast before jets out of the house, pressing a quick kiss to his mum’s cheek. (Even though his mum is quite tall, he has to lean down now.)

  He gets in to the back seat next to a sulking Allura who desperately pulls him in for a hug, dramatically wailing, “Thank goodness you’re here, Keith! Save me. Those two will not stop flirting.”

  “We’re not going to stop flirting just because Keith is here,” Shiro responds.

  “Uhh,” Keith says.

  They refuse to tell him where they’re going and when they start leaving their district, Keith has half a mind to call the police and report kidnapping. (Really, though. He probably should’ve noticed the fact that Allura is wearing a rainbow headband, Adam has a blue, pink and violet band around his wrist and Shiro straight-up has a rainbow on his shirt. But he doesn’t.) He’s still questioning when they park the car in the city and they walk away, the older three grinning from ear to ear.

  “Guys, come on!” Keith groans. “Just tell me. This isn’t funny.”

  The further they walk into the heart of the city, the more people there are in colourful clothes, banners and accessories. Still, Keith doesn’t get it because he’s an idiot and it makes it worse when the senior trio go into a building that is some sort of office and up the elevators. Allura talks to a man with funky ginger moustache who is the owner of the building and apparently her uncle – Keith can’t see how on earth they’re related, thus increasing the suspicion that he’s being kidnapped – before she leads them out to a small balcony.

  Then he balks as suddenly everything makes sense.

  There are thousands of people lined up on the sides of the street, waving all different flags. From one end of the street comes music, followed by floats and cars decorated with balloons and streamers and a whole procession of people in particular sets of colours.

  This is a pride march.

  Keith’s jaw drops, a lump forms in his throat. He looks at Shiro, then at Adam and then Allura. “But this is... This is- I’m straight.”

  “Me too,” Allura says. “But it’s okay. We can still come and support the community.”

  Keith can’t say anything back. All he knows is that this is making his skin crawl and sweat. He trains his eyes back onto the parade because that feels like the safest option.

  The music becomes louder and the cheers rise above it. Keith isn’t sure where to look. People in the procession dance and sing on the cars, high-fiving those on the sides with massive smiles on their faces. Some kiss and hug and hold hands, totally comfortable and jovial.

  Balloons painted with all sorts of messages rise into the air. One flies by close to Keith. It’s rainbow coloured and the words read: RAISE A GLASS TO FREEDOM.

  Everyone is so happy. Next to him, Adam and Shiro have their arms wrapped around each others’ waists, smiling wide. A little bit of tension leaves Keith’s shoulders. This is what happiness is, he thinks as he watches the people down there. They don’t seem to have a care in the world.

  Group after group goes by, bearing flags. The fourth one pulls his mind into overdrive. Their flag consists of two blue horizontal stripes, two pink and a white one in the centre. He’s not sure what his brain has snapped onto but he thinks of Pidge and realises; she used to be a boy. It must’ve been years ago because by the time he knew Pidge, she was already a girl.

  “Oh,” he breathes. Then he grins.

  He doesn’t know why he does it but he smiles and laughs and Allura joins in, taking selfies on the balcony one story above a pride parade.

~

  They leave before the last of the parade goes by because Adam is hungry and Shiro absolutely insists that his boyfriend must eat now. Keith and Allura share a look but agree to go get McDonald’s anyway.

  They’re walking back to the car when Keith sees them; a small group of people standing around with signs and posters not so far from the actual parade itself. But these signs read very different things.

  Things like; HOMO SEX IS SIN.

  DON’T ERASE MUMS AND DADS.

  U NEED JESUS.

  Keith wants to turn away from these people. He wants Shiro and Adam to turn away from these people but they’ve already seen and a few people from the group have already seen them.

  Then Adam does something Keith never thought the student body president would do – he holds up his and Shiro’s joined hands and with the other, he raises a middle finger at the protestors.

  Allura’s eyes bulge and Keith is pretty sure his face looks the same especially as Shiro takes it one step further and kisses Adam.

  Back in the car, Keith asks, “Doesn’t that bother you guys? That people don’t like it.”

  “Keith,” Adam says, “no matter what you do, there will always be people who don’t like it. This is coming from someone who has to try to please the entire student body. Most of the time it’s just not possible and that’s okay.”

  Keith nods.

  “And honestly,” Shiro adds, “fuck them.”

 

[Summer 2016]

  The summer before junior year was going to be great. There’s meant to be a meteor shower on the fourth night of his vacation and Keith plans to spend it on the beach with Lance, Rachel, Veronica, their parents and anyone else who’s remotely interested.

  Keith has been more excited this year, not just because of the meteor shower. It doesn’t seem possible but being able to talk to Lance or text him on a daily basis makes him miss Lance more than going months with no contact. Every day has been a reminder of the time Keith ever genuinely enjoys. And he likes to think that it’s thanks to Lance that he even tried so hard to become closer to Shiro, and by extension his friends, in the past year.

  Yes, his dad is gone but having others, having his mum made the pain a little more bearable. A little less alone. He thinks maybe his dad would be proud of him for finally having friends. Maybe.

  Keith arrives in the evening and Lance isn’t at the hotel, only Rachel is. By some mystical force, he tells her that she’s become more beautiful and Rachel blushes deeply. Then Keith blushes because he can’t figure out what came over him. It could’ve been the giddy feeling of being back again. It could be the fact that Rachel really has become more beautiful.

  The two of them head down to the beach in search for Lance, which is no easy task. They comb the entire length of the beach until Rachel finally recognises a girl standing with a surfboard by her side, looking out to the ocean. Keith has absolutely no clue who this girl is but doesn’t question it when Rachel starts talking to her in Spanish.

  Keith catches bits of their conversation like asking where Lance is (but they speak a lot faster than he’s used to listening). As if Lance magically knows he’s the topic of conversation, he comes running out of the water with that ever-present smile that can outshine the sun.

  Keith almost doesn’t recognise him at first. He used to think he had a nice body from working out and pushing his body to the limits during karate classes but he’s apparently got nothing on Lance, who swims two hours a day. _Holy fuck._ He could probably grate cheese on those abs. And like Rachel, Lance seems to have become more...beautiful too.

  “Keeeeith!” Lance cries, loud and clear. As soon as he’s out of the water, he drops the surfboard he’s carrying and wraps his long arms around Keith like an octopus.

  That – thank god – effectively pulls Keith out of whatever road his thoughts were going down.

  “Hey, Lance. How’ve you been?”

  “Great! It’s been amazing, Keith! Have you met my girlfriend yet?”

  It’s like being dunked in ice cold water. “Girl...friend?”

  “Yeah!” Lance says and pulls the girl into his side by her shoulders. “Keith, meet Maria. Maria, this is Keith.”

  In heavily accented English, Maria says, “It’s nice to finally meet you. Lance has been very excited to see you.”

  Keith smiles and he feels the awkwardness in his face and he hopes he doesn’t look constipated. “Nice to meet you too.”

  Maria is gorgeous. She’s all warm, sun-kissed skin, big bottom lip, soft curves and glossy black hair that waves past her shoulder blades. She’s undeniably native to this beach, which begs the question: when has this happened if not in Florida?

  Keith was talking to Lance just last week and he said nothing about having a girlfriend. Every other time he’s had a fling, Keith would always know via the group chat but this is new. It’s like having an anvil dropped on him.

  Rachel, bless her, probably notices Keith’s total lack of understanding on how to handle this situation and suggests that they all go swimming. Keith only nods silently.

  That’s the start of things going _not_ according his plans that don’t accommodate an extra person tagging along. Well, they probably could but Keith can’t help the feeling of annoyance at Maria’s presence, which he knows is utterly wrong and selfish of him because Maria is so nice. But he’s been looking forward to this for months. This week was meant to be his only week in the entire year he gets to spend with his best friend and now he has to share him with someone else.

  But maybe Keith could’ve lived with sharing Lance if _it_ didn’t happen. The beach is packed with people on the night of the meteor shower and Keith stands with all the McClain siblings and of course, Maria.

  The first meteor flies across the sky so quickly he’d miss it if he blinks. Then another goes by. Another, another and then the dark blue canvas is filled with little streaks of light, some longer than others and the stars fall and fall and fall.

  Keith allows himself a glance at Lance who stands next to him. He has his face tilted to the sky, watching in awe and Keith’s heart thumps in his ear. Then Maria turns Lance’s face away and kisses him square on his mouth.

  This is the first time Keith sees them kiss.

  He wants it to be the last.

  It makes him sick in the stomach and he’s dizzy and he has to go.

  He slips away.

  Only Veronica notices. “Keith, where are you going?” she asks before the crowd starts closing the gap he’s left between him and them.

  “I think I ate bad seafood.”

  He gets back to the hotel and his mum is by the pool, watching the meteor shower from here. Keith tries to get by without her noticing but nothing escapes her policewoman eyes.

  “Keith? Why are you back so soon?”

  “I’m just- I’m just not feeling well. I just need to use the bathroom. You don’t have to follow me.”

  She doesn’t.

  Until she does and finds Keith sprawled on his front on the bed in their room.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks. The bed sinks with her weight.

  Keith groans into the mattress. “Really, really messed up. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.”

  “Do you want me to get Mrs McClain to check up on you?”

  “No, no. I’m sure it’ll be fine in the morning. I just need to- I just need to rest. Don’t worry about me, Mum.”

  Even with his face in the mattress, his mum somehow finds a way to brush his hair back and kiss the crown of his head. “If you need me, I’ll be right here.”

 

  Clouds cover the sky and sprinkle rain before the meteor shower finishes.

 

[January 2017]

  School is colder without Shiro, Adam and Allura. They’re already off in university while Keith is still stuck here, alone again. He becomes known as That Guy Who Only Hung Out With Upperclassman And Now He’s A Loner. Well, he hasn’t heard anyone say that yet but that’s what he imagines people say behind his back.

<10:22> Lance: oh my god she said yes!

<10:23> Pidge: seriously???! She can do so much better

<10:24> Hunk: Pidge be nice to Lance

<10:24> Lance: yeah Pidge! Be nice to me

<10:25> Keith: don’t you guys ever go to class?

<10:26> Lance: we are in class

<10:27> Lance: we’re just master texters

  Keith is not. He’s currently sitting in AP Chem and the teacher’s talking about some project that’s to be done in pairs or something. He kind of zoned off for a minute while he followed one of Lance’s many adventures in getting a date for junior prom, the plot twist this time being that the girl actually said yes.

  He hopes he doesn’t look too pissed off when the teacher starts assigning partners and a guy waves to him from across the room. His name is Connor, Keith recognises. He’s one of the few people who’s ever said more than a couple of words to him throughout their high school life. Conner actually invited Keith to join his jock friends at the start of this year (having been in the same team as Shiro) but Keith took one look at the table of loud, obnoxious teenage boys throwing chips around and decided he was fine on his own.

  He doesn’t get a chance to discuss anything with Connor that period. Next is PE class that Keith only took because he can’t get out of it. At the end of the class, he changes in one of the toilet cubicles because the main change room stinks and everyone feels the need to parade around half naked in some primitive show of masculinity. Keith doesn’t need that.

  He tries to slip out quietly like usual but to no avail this time.

  “Hey,” Conner says, making him stop halfway out the room. “So how do you want to do this project seeing as we don’t get any in class time?”

  Connor is, of course, not wearing a shirt.

  Keith really, really hopes that he can blame the heat in his cheeks to the exercise he did, mixed with the cold air outside. “We can go to the library during breaks. Or just do our own parts by ourselves and then put them together.”

  “How about we do a bit together just to get used to how the other works and then we separate?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Come over my house this afternoon?”

  “Alright.”

  “Cool. I’ll text you my address.”

  Keith doesn’t even ask how he has his number. He just leaves.

~

  There’s a nagging feeling at the back of Keith’s mind that he tries very hard to ignore. He’s been ignoring it for years but now it’s getting harder.

  He carries the weight of this unacknowledged thing and desperately hopes there never comes a day to acknowledge it.

  And if a god exists, He doesn’t answer Keith’s prayers.

~

  Keith gets to Connor’s house after school.

  There’s no one else home. Connor welcomes him inside and they start working at the coffee table in the living room because Keith feels better, more grounded, sitting on the floor than at the dining table. An hour or so later, there are papers everywhere and both their laptops are open because one isn’t enough. Usually Keith hates group work but Connor is diligent and smarter than the vibe he gives off.

  They sit on the couch to take a break and Keith finds it weirdly comfortable even though he’s in a stranger’s house.

  “Who are they?” Connor asks, pointing at Keith’s laptop wallpaper, which is a picture of Lance, Rachel, Hunk and Pidge that Lance sent from Florida.

  “My friends.”

  “Those are some good looking twins there.”

  Keith hums vaguely in agreement, looking at the photo. “That’s Lance and Rachel.”

  “Were you taking the picture?”

  “No, I- They live in Florida.”

  “Florida? Jesus. How did you meet them?”

  Keith tells a short version of how they first met and how he maintained that friendship for so long despite only seeing each other six days a year. It’s a fuzzy recount of the events at best but the people there; he tells Connor about them the way he’s memorised. He tells him about how Lance is the epitome of sunshine and is loud in the way he lives that nothing he does is insignificant. How Rachel is like the clear blue sky to Lance’s sunshine, calm but bright, and neither is truly complete without the other.

  He tells Connor about Veronica who’s mature but fun to be around and how Marco and Luis love their younger siblings so much that they rarely ever say no to even the strangest of requests. He tells him about Mr and Mrs McClain who has to put up with all their children’s bullshit (especially Lance’s) but still look at them – and Keith – like they’re the world.

  “You’re cute,” Connor says, cutting Keith’s rambling off. He’s looking at Keith like he’s a cake.

  “What?”

  “You’re cute when you get all excited.”

  The weight crushes down on Keith, heavy and hot and demanding to be acknowledged. It’s not a nagging in the back of his mind anymore but it’s screaming at him, vicious and cruel. All it takes is Connor glancing at his lips for Keith to crumple under the weight. For him to grab Connor by the front of his shirt and crash their lips together.

  Then they’re kissing, hard and fast and furious, and Keith is half in Connor’s lap. Hands find their way around his back and press his torso flush against a solid body and Keith revels in how good that feels and he grabs at the other boy’s shirt to bring him even closer.

  Conner makes a noise that’s somewhere between a moan and a growl as he pushes Keith back on the couch, settling between his legs. He pulls apart for a fraction of a second and Keith closes his eyes so he won’t have to see the person hovering over him. Instead he imagines blue eyes, freckles and pretty eyelashes and pulling down a different pair of lips on his. The hands slipping under his jacket and the thumb caressing his hipbones belong to someone else and it turns Keith molten beneath the weight of another person pressing every possible inch together.

  He doesn’t want soft curves and perfume. He wants hard edges and the smell of the ocean breeze.

  Suddenly Keith becomes aware of the fact that he’s making out with a guy he barely knows, on a couch that smells like worn leather, in a house that’s too empty.

  “ _Shit._ ” He throws Connor off the couch and onto the floor. “Shit.”

  Connor looks dumbfounded. “Keith, what-”

  “Don’t. Just don’t. I have to- I have to go.” Keith’s already shoving all his things into his bag.

  “No, you don’t. Look, I’m sorry if I was too-”

  “ _Don’t_. I swear to fucking God, just don’t, okay?” Goddamnit, his hands are shaking. Why won’t his pen just get in the bloody bag?

  “Jesus, calm down.”

  Fuck his pen.

  Keith leaves it on the floor and gets the hell out of there.

  He runs all the way home.

~

  The room is dark and his laptop screen is bright. YouTube is muted and on autoplay hours after what Keith was watching and he hasn’t a clue what the video is about now. He’s looking but he doesn’t see. The last time he glanced at the clock it was 11:35 pm. His mum finishes her shift at midnight.

  He can’t sleep.

  His thoughts won’t let him.

  There’s the beginning of a word on his mind and it’s so, _so_ hard to keep the rest of the word from forming. It terrifies him, seizing his throat, setting his veins on fire.

  Headlights roll into the driveway and filters through the curtains. Keith wants to run and he wants to stay and he wants to hide and never come out.

  A jingle of keys and the click of the lock. He wishes he never went to Connor’s.

  Keith stands up at the same time his mum comes into the room and there isn’t enough time to run. His hands tremble and he can’t feel his legs. A lump jams in his throat and he can’t breathe and his eyes sting.

  “Keith,” Krolia says in surprise. “You’re still up.”

  There’s something in the way that his mum looks at him that wrenches a strangled sob out of him and he can’t stop can’t stop can’t stop. Hot tears fall and he can’t breathe and nothing he does stops the pathetic sobbing and he clutches at his chest because it hurts so much. The way she looks at him and she has no idea.

  She has no idea and yet she comes to hold him to her chest and because he’s such a selfish bastard, he leans in to cry into the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around her so he won’t have to see his mum’s face.

  “Keith, what’s wrong?” The worry in her voice makes him bawl harder.

  “ _I’m sorry_ ,” he cries. “I’m sorry I’m like this.”

  “You’re scaring me now. What happened?”

  _I ruined your life._ “I’m gay.”

  She freezes and Keith squeezes his eyes shut, preparing himself for the worst. And then she pulls him back to frown at him. “That’s it? Why on earth would you be sorry for that?”

  Keith sniffles, wiping his face but it’s no use. Tears still fall and he can’t help it. “Because I’m an embarrassment to the family,” he whispers.

  “To which family?”

  “To ours. Me, you, grandpa and grandma. Dad.”

  Through the blurriness, Keith sees her heart break and he wants to be back in her arms again but that was a lifetime ago. It feels wrong now.

  She asks softly, “Did we ever do anything to make you feel like you can’t be yourself?”

  He balks at the question. “What- no. No, it’s not that but... Aren’t you worried that our relatives will blame you for raising... Well, raising someone like me.” The backlash she would get from their very Asian and traditional relatives would be insane. They’d say she is a bad mother for not setting her son on the right path. They’d talk behind her back and to her face and sneer at her on the streets and it’s all his fault.

  “Someone like you?” she asks like she can’t believe what he’s saying. “Someone brave and beautiful and selfless? Keith, nothing is worth more to me than your happiness. Your dad would agree with me. We will stand in front of bullets for you, Keith. I don’t care about judgement. I have nothing to be ashamed of, especially not you.”

  She wipes his cheeks and he presses his face into her hands. Something like relief starts to blossom in his chest but he squashes the feeling down, doesn’t dare to hope. “You’re not angry?”

  “I’m _proud_. I’m proud that you’ve accepted who you are and I’m proud that you’re brave enough to come out. It takes guts. No matter who you bring home, you’re always going to be my son.”

  “I’m sorry, Mum. I just wanted to be normal.”

  “You are. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. You haven’t changed just because you’ve accepted yourself, Keith. Nothing’s changed.”

  Keith looks down at their feet. “It feels like everything has.”

  “It doesn’t have to. We’re going to wake up in the morning, we’ll have breakfast and you’ll go to school and ace your classes like usual. When you come home, you’ll call your friends and you’ll go to sleep again.”

  “Am I supposed to tell everyone else?”

  She smiles. “Only if you want to and if you’re ready to.”

  He’s still not over the fact that his mum doesn’t have a problem with him being gay while he spent hours panicking and terrified because he thought she might’ve disowned him in shame. He feels stupid and guilty that he’d thought so lowly of his mum who’s always been there for him. Now, a huge part of the weight has been lifted and he can breathe easier.

  But he’s not ready for the world to know yet. “I think I’ll wait a little longer.”

  She pulls him to a hug and Keith sniffles into her shoulder, holding on tight. She smells like home. “I love you, Mum.”

  “I love you too, Keith.”

 

[Summer 2017]

  When Keith walks into El Cielo, Lance is holding a baby that’s probably no more than six months old. Keith freezes on the spot.

  Lance hasn’t even had a chance to yell his name like he usually does before Keith deadpans, “Tell me that’s not your kid.”

  Lance looks down at the baby in confusion and the baby looks up at him in confusion. Then Lance shrieks. “Of course not! It’s my nephew. Jesus, Keith, don’t scare me like that.”

  Keith shrugs to hide the relief. “Sorry but it is a possibility.”

  Lance’s face goes red as Mrs McClain’s head snaps in his direction from talking to Krolia. “Yeah, yeah, real funny. This is Sylvio, Luis’s son. Sylvio, that meanie there is tío Keith.”

  Little Sylvio follows his uncle’s point to Keith and he blinks owlishly with big blue eyes. “Okay,” Lance says. “I’m just gonna give Sylvio back to Lisa and we can get out of here. I’ve been babysitting all morning and don’t get me wrong. I love my nephew but I really need the sun and now that you’re here, Keith, I’ve got an excuse.”

  “Gee, I feel the love, Lance.” Keith says it and his heart is skipping but he smirks and Lance smirks right back. After Keith had finally accepted his sexuality he could look at Lance and think to himself that yes, Lance McClain is attractive. Yes, maybe Keith has always had a crush on him but never realised because it was really dark in the closet. But talking to Lance on Skype the day after he came out to himself and his mum, all he could think was, “ _Oh._ ”

  It’s still all he can think now as he watches Lance smile at him and then coo at his nephew as he walks off to find his sister-in-law.

  Lance finds Keith in his room with Rachel in tow and she attacks him with a hug that sends both of them onto the bed in fits of giggles.

  “No way,” Lance says, his face turning into that mischievous grin he always has before he’s about to execute a terrible idea. “I’m not getting left out of a group hug.”

  Then he pretty much bellyflops onto Keith and knocks the wind out of him.

  “Lance,” Keith rasps. “I can’t fucking breathe.” And it’s not all because he’s crushing Keith’s chest.

  Lance rolls off with a laugh, settling himself next to him on the bed so that their shoulders touch.

  “What do you want to do?” Rachel asks, turning on her side.

  “Don’t you have to go call your boyfriend or something, Rachel?” Lance says. “I never get Keith to myself.”

  Rachel sticks her tongue out at Lance. Thank god neither of them notices Keith’s temporary shock at the idea that Lance would want to hang out with him alone. Then he chastises himself; _Keith, you useless gay. Stop pining after your best friend._

  “You’ve got a boyfriend?” he asks Rachel.

  She gives a one-shouldered shrug and blushes. “Not really, we just went on one date before school finished. I can’t really call him a boyfriend.”

  “You’d better not. He’s a jackass!” Lance cries.

  “Just because he swims faster than you, it doesn’t make him a jackass,” Rachel retorts.

  Keith puts the pieces together from Lance ranting in the group chat for days about a new guy at school who’s faster at freestyle than him, a state swimming champion. “Oh, him. Did he really steal your textbook?”

  Lance cries, “Yes!” at the same time Rachel says, “No. Lance left it in class and he was just returning it.”

  “I swear he took it on purpose,” Lance mutters.

  Keith rolls his eyes. “So this is like the time you found out I’m stronger than you and you sulked for two weeks and wouldn’t stop listing everything you’re better at.”

  “Lance, shut up,” Rachel says before her brother even gets a chance to open his mouth. “Keith _is_ stronger and you definitely sulked. Now let’s go do something before the day is over.”

  With Lance grumbling, they head down to the beach for a swim and lazily lounge around for the rest of the evening.

  The next night, they take Luis’s jeep into town and drive it into the outdoor cinema to watch the re-run of Lilo and Stitch where, of course, Lance bawls and even Keith tears up a little. Rachel just teases the both of them endlessly because apparently she has a heart of iron. Afterwards, Lance insists that he must have ice-cream to cheer himself up so each of them ends up with a cone that quickly melts even before they get to the final destination of the night, the cliff they sat upon years ago after Keith’s dad died.

  “Hey, is this okay?” Lance asks when he sees the recognition on Keith’s face.

  “Yeah. Just wasn’t expecting it.”

  “There’s supposed to be a light meteor shower somewhere in the world today and I thought maybe we can see from here,” he explains.

  Meteor shower. Huh. Kind of ironic.

  The jeep parked behind, they sit near the edge of the cliff. For some reasons, it feels totally different now than it did before. Keith expected to feel nostalgia of some sort but he doesn’t. There’s only a sense of safety and freedom here, as if letting Lance and Rachel into his life here solidified this place as one of comfort.

  He doesn’t know who starts the conversation but soon they’re talking about senior year coming up in just a few short weeks that will pass by all too quickly.

  “I’m gonna make it the best year of high school ever,” Lance declares. “Go to high school parties for the last time. Have fun with my friends. Leave a legacy of some sort.”

  Rachel snorts. “Haven’t you already started that tradition of wearing sandals to football matches?”

  “I’m not gonna let that be my only legacy, Rachel. That’s a shitty legacy anyway and it’s a total mockery of my beautiful sandalled feet.”

  Keith doesn’t even want to know what that’s about. Instead he asks, “What do you want to do then?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out and it’s gonna be amazing.”

  “You should probably focus on studying if you want to get into the Garrison,” his sister says. “Veronica didn’t get in by playing pranks on the principal.”

  Keith looks to Lance at this new information. “You want to go to the Garrison? For what course?”

  Lance’s eyes light up as he turns to face Keith and leans forward in excitement. “They have the best aerodynamics course in the country and I plan to become the greatest and the best looking pilot in history.”

  Shiro is going to the Garrison, as are Adam and Allura. Keith hasn’t really given much thought to what he wants to study but he thinks maybe the Garrison is the place for him too. They also have the best engineering and astronomy courses.

  “What about you?” he asks Rachel.

  “I’m thinking a teaching course. You?”

  “I don’t know yet. Being a pilot sounds pretty good though.”

  “Yes!” Lance says. “Come to the Garrison with me, Hunk and Pidge. This is gonna be awesome! We’ll see each other every day and finally do friend stuff all together.”

  “Eh,” Keith says. “I’ll probably get tired of seeing your face every day.” That’s a complete lie. He’ll never get tired of forming constellations in those freckles and seeing the entire galaxy in his eyes.

  Lance gasps dramatically. “Keith Kogane, you take that back right now!”

  “Or what?”

  “I’ll-”

  Keith smiles, wide and unrestrained, at Lance struggling to get a threat out. “Yeah?”

  He settles on, “I’ll leave you on this cliff.”

  Keith laughs, sucking a bit melted ice-cream of his thumb. “Sure, Lance.”

  “Wait,” Rachel says, looking between the two of them with narrowed eyes like she’s trying to figure something out. “Were you two... You know what, never mind. Let’s just get going before our mums skin us for staying out too late. The meteor shower doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen anyway.”

  She gets up and heads back to the car, smiling like she _knows_. The look she gave him before leaving- it sets Keith’s heart thumping like a war drum. He was too caught up in the banter with Lance that he probably showed so much more than he intended. Jesus, he forgot Rachel was there for a second and she was right next to him.

  “What’s her problem?” Lance wonders aloud as he looks at his sister’s retreating back with a frown.

  Thank the stars he doesn’t catch on.

  It’s not until they’re both in Lance’s room, lying on their respective beds that Keith realises something. Well, he’s been noticing it more and more but today is totally different. Lance didn’t once mention anything about girls.

  “Hey, Lance,” Keith says. “You got a girlfriend?”

  Lance turns on his side and strands of hair fall over the face mask he has on. “Not right now. Why?”

  “It’s just weird that you never said anything about girls in your plans for senior year. I assumed they’d be a part of it. Also, I hear less about your misadventures in dating in the chat recently.”

  He bites the corner of his lips. “Hmm, I guess.”

  Keith thinks it strange that he doesn’t rise to the obvious teasing but doesn’t have the chance to question it when Lance continues, “Haven’t really had much time for dating lately. But it’s definitely in the agenda next year. How about you anyway? You never talk about girls.”

  Keith blinks, heat rising to his cheeks. “Me? I just haven’t met the right one yet. Acxa tried to hook me up with some of her prestigious private school friends but you know. I’m not the best at socialising.”

  It’s not a complete lie because at some point Acxa did, except it was on his request back in sophomore year when he was still in denial about his sexuality. Like Keith, Acxa isn’t much of a social butterfly either and two of the three friends Acxa bothered to make are lesbians who are dating and the other moved to Australia. So that went well.

  “Why not Acxa?”

  “Her dad arrested me for smashing a plate on a kid’s head. I try to date her, I’ll die.” Also, it’s really weird. Acxa is like that friend who somehow knows everything about him even though he talks to her maybe once a month. Their friendship is based on mutual understanding of each other’s lack of social skills and even if he was straight, he wouldn’t ruin that anyway.

  “Want me to find someone for you?” Lance offers very seriously.

  “No, thanks. And go to sleep. It’s late.”

  “What? Come on! I know a lot of people. We can go on double dates and stuff.”

  “Goodnight, Lance.”

 

[August 2017]

  Keith doesn’t talk much to his grandparents when they call. He finds some excuse to not have to talk long, like tests and assignments and being exhausted. He can’t really look at them in the eye and the guilt of listening to his mum talk to them never ceases. She constantly reassures him that she doesn’t care and he knows it’s true but he knows there might come a day when the phone calls stop, when it’ll be just him and his mum for a family, thousands of miles away on a lonely continent.

  He tries not to think about it.

  He’s lost count of the number of times he’s typed these two words on his phone and never hit send. He thinks he might send it when he’s messaging Shiro about the Garrison but he doesn’t. He thinks he might send it when Lance sends him pictures of Rihanna and gush about how beautiful she is but he doesn’t. He thinks he might send it when Acxa texts to let him know she found someone who’s interested but he doesn’t.

  At first he beats himself up over it but he comes to terms with the fact that he’s just not ready.

  So he throws himself into his studies. He aces everything, even Spanish.

  He _will_ get into the Garrison.

 

[Summer 2018]

  This is the summer that changes everything. High school is officially over, graduation gone and passed, a chapter of their lives done.

  Pidge and Hunk are in Cuba for the entirety of the holidays and Keith’s arranged to stay for three weeks even if his mum only stays for one. When Keith walks in, Pidge races towards him at the speed of light and jumps onto him, wrapping her limbs all around him. Hunk is there a second later, lifting the both of them into a hug. He’s only just met the two in person but it’s as if they’ve shared a thousand hugs like this before. Keith can’t help the laugh from escaping, especially as Lance protests at being left out.

  It feels like he’s finally home.

  This year, shenanigans seem to multiply with Pidge and Hunk there. Keith wasn’t even sure if that’s possible but apparently it is. They act like children. They hold massive water fights that result in at least two of them almost drowning, one of them being Keith, bury each other (Lance) under sand and build majestic castles on top of him with burrowed buckets and spades from kids nearby (their parents do NOT like that) and talk so loudly they get kicked out of a restaurant. Not even Rachel and Lance buttering up to the manager can save them.

  Before coming, Keith was a little scared to find out that Pidge and Hunk would be there, mostly because he thought he might not fit into their tight-knit trio that’s survived grade school, middle school and high school. But he worried for nothing. He bonds with them by teasing Lance together, which draws amusing, overdramatic reactions from the Cuban boy.

  It’s the night after Krolia flew back to Michigan that they decide on another bonfire by the beach, this time with only the five of them plus Veronica. A giant bag of marshmallows and cans of coca cola (Mrs McClain absolutely refuses to let them have alcohol) pass around the circle.

  Lance is playing guitar again and he’s a lot better now than the last time Keith heard him. No one is paying much attention to him singing, all caught in their own conversations, but for once, Lance doesn’t seem to care. His eyes are closed in concentration, small knots forming between his eyebrows. The light from the fire forms harsh shadows on his face but it makes him softer in a way that makes no logical sense. Keith wants to touch him, the smooth slope of nose, the arched bows of his lips, the sharp curve of his jaw and the base of his throat where the V formed by his collarbones peek out from the dark blue shirt.

  Lance opens his eyes and meets Keith’s, a clash of bright blue and dull greyish-violet.

  Keith’s face heats from being caught staring. “Teach me,” he says to hide his flustering.

  Lance stops playing. “Teach you?”

  Keith nods at the guitar. “That. Teach me how to play.”

  “Sure,” Lance says with a smile that accelerates Keith’s heartbeats.

  Lance passes him the guitar and starts teaching the basics. Keith takes pride in being a fast learner but everything flies over his head the moment Lance reaches around his body to correct something and suddenly his back his really warm from Lance’s chest and- _God, he smells so nice._

  It briefly occurs to Keith that God probably wouldn’t approve of that thought but he doesn’t care. Lance’s face is really close. Not close enough in his opinion but still close enough to make any chance of forming coherent thoughts float out to sea.

  “Don’t hold too hard,” Lance says quietly, easing Keith’s death grip on the fingerboard by placing his own hand on top. “It’s gonna hurt your fingers.”

  Keith releases the neck and sucks in a breath. “You know what?” he croaks shakily. “Guitar is not for me. You can keep playing.” He’s not sure he can sit so close to Lance any longer without doing something stupid. He pushes the guitar back into Lance’s lap. 

  Lance looks at him, confused, as Keith subtly wriggles away to put some distance and try to get his heartbeat back in check. Something flashes across Lance’s face before he nods and goes back to playing, turning away from Keith. Keith is okay with that. He’s not sure he can keep looking anyway. He tears his eyes away, only to find Rachel looking at him from across the fire. She smiles a tiny little smile before it goes off her face and she turns back to what Hunk is saying.

  Oh, she definitely knows. This is not good. But maybe it could be?

  They’ve almost run out of marshmallows when Pidge suggests, “Let’s play truth or dare. We haven’t played in years.”

  Hunk makes a face. “Don’t we pretty much know everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets already?”

  “No, let’s play!” Rachel pipes. “You think you know people until you play truth or dare.”

  Oh, no. She wouldn’t. Right?

  Keith opens his mouth to protest but Pidge is already yelling, “Veronica, truth or dare?”

  And so it begins.

  Apparently Rachel is right. You think you know people, and then you don’t.

  For example; Pidge has once put a bug in Mrs Sanda’s coffee, which the woman drunk. Hunk has gotten so drunk at a family gathering that he vomited in his mum’s petunias and didn’t tell Pidge or Lance because he was so ashamed. Rachel admits to, uh, having done some _things_ with a guy in the girls’ bathroom. Lance gapes for ages, eyes like an owl and totally speechless, while Veronica moves on after asking if she was safe.

  What catches Keith’s attention is when Pidge, with a shit-eating grin, directs her question at Lance, who’s probably regretting choosing truth. “Have you ever kissed a guy?”

  Lance goes redder than Keith has ever seen him. “What the fuck, Pidge. You know I have. You were there when we were playing spin-the-bottle at the party.”

  Keith’s mind spins. Lance has kissed a boy before. Okay, yeah, logically that doesn’t mean he’s interested in Keith but still. An irrational part of his brain is going into overdrive at this newfound information.

  “Keith, truth or dare?” Rachel asks.

  She’s looking at him weird, in a way that makes him feel like there’s no way out of this madness. If he chooses truth, she can make him reveal his feelings for Lance. If he chooses dare, she can make him kiss Lance.

  But... Are they even really bad options?

  He sighs. “Truth.”

  “What’s one thing you want to share with us?”

  Keith stares at her. She stares back and her eyes, brown to Lance’s blue, urge him to say what’s on his mind, warm and encouraging. He looks around the group. No one judged Hunk for getting shit-face drunk when he’s the responsible one. No one judged Rachel for losing her virginity in a school bathroom. No one judged Lance for kissing a guy. No one judged Pidge who used to be a boy.

  These are his friends. His best friends.

  They’ve had his back through everything. Even when they couldn’t be there physically, there were there with a million texts cheering him up and asking if they need get Lance’s uncle in Michigan to beat anyone up for him. If he can’t be himself around them, then where else can he be?

  So Keith inhales deeply. He pushes the words along with his breath, “I’m gay.”

  Apparently no one was expecting him to say that. The words hang in the air for one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Missi-

  Veronica sighs with a smile. “All the cute ones are.”

  “I’ve kind of suspected for a while,” Rachel says.

  “Wow, Keith,” Hunk says, mouth stretching into a grin. “How long have you been keeping that from us?”

  Keith mumbles, “A few years. I wasn’t sure how you guys would take it.” Of course his mum and Connor know. Keith had to talk to the guy again at school and practically begged to not tell anyone else. Connor wasn’t happy with Keith running out on him but he understood, thankfully.

  “You know you can tell us anything,” Pidge says, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “We’re not gonna judge you. Besides, now we can form Queer Club.”

  Lance bumps his shoulder into him, smiling a little. “I feel offended, Keith. You think we’re gonna cut you out or something?”

  “No, I just- I wasn’t ready to tell anyone else and...” He looks around, heart swelling at the sight of all his friends smiling. “Thank you,” he whispers through the lump in his throat.

  When the game finishes and they decide to go back Keith stands a little taller, free from the weight of the life-long secret. As they walk back, he thanks Rachel for giving him the opportunity and bumps arms with Pidge and Hunk who have him sandwiched in a conversation about...something. Keith’s kind of lost track. Instead, he’s listening to Lance and Veronica talk in Spanish a little ways away.

  He doesn’t understand everything but he catches things like, “...tell Keith.”

  Lance frowns at his sister and gestures about wildly, hissing under his breath.

  Then the two act as if they never had that conversation. Keith wonders what Lance has to tell him.

~

 Keith was ten the first time Lance woke him up in the middle of the night. Eight years later, he does it again. Keith groans and rubs his eyes, trying to get his vision to stop fuzzing with sleep.

  “Come on,” Lance whispers, a lot closer than Keith thought, which jerks him awake more effectively than icy water.

  The panic subsides when Lance quickly leaves the bed’s side and tip toes around the semi-dark room. Keith just sighs and throws his legs off the bed. He’s stopped questioning Lance a long time ago and the fact that Keith can’t ever deny him anything doesn’t help. So he follows Lance silently to not wake Pidge and Hunk who are asleep on extra beds shoved into the room.

  “What are we doing?” he asks once they’re outside the room.

  Lance’s voice is clipped and laced with a certain sort of nervousness that’s too strange on his tongue. “Just come with me, Keith.”

  This time, Lance doesn’t go to the kitchen. He grabs his surfboard and leaves the hotel, heading down to the beach.

  “Really?” Keith asks and he pretends to be annoyed because the other option is letting Lance know how nervous and thrilled he is to be alone with him, which doesn’t happen often. “You woke me up to surf in the middle of the night?”

  “I just couldn’t sleep,” Lance answers vaguely but with an edge to his words that worries Keith a little bit.

  Lance is rarely ever serious about much, preferring to approach things with carefree mirth. But Keith has seen Lance drive himself crazy and plough through sleepless nights thinking he’s not good enough for the Garrison and this looks like one of those times. There’s also Veronica urging him to tell Keith about something.

  “Are you okay?” Keith asks.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I just need to clear my head.”

  Lance is pointedly not looking at him as he determinedly marches down the beach.

  “Does this have something to do with me?”

  “No! I mean, kind of but not really. It’s mostly me. I’m actually not sure why I brought you along. I probably shouldn’t have-”

  Keith cuts off the ramble with a hand on his shoulder and Lance stops abruptly, looking at the hand. There’s a looming feeling in Keith’s stomach and he thinks he knows what this is about. When Keith came out, Lance’s smile had seemed forced, unnatural. Despite it all, Keith offers a small smile. “Hey. Look, I know I tease you and make fun of you a lot but if you want to talk to me about anything, I’ll be here to listen, especially if it’s about me.”

  Lance relaxes a little, the tension going out of his shoulders. He smiles. “Yeah, I know, buddy. Now let’s get out there.”

  “Wait, me too?”

  “Yeah. You’re already here. You might as well, right?”

  Keith sighs and shucks off his shirt, dropping it on the sand. “Not too far out.”

  “All right.”

  Keith gets on the front, the water cold against his skin and he shivers. Still, it’s better than being under the scorching sun. Lance gets on behind him and pushes them out to where waves gently rock the board. There’s the stars, the lap of ocean foam against his legs, crash of waves far out in the sea and the empty space Keith feels behind him like Lance is being too careful to not come closer.

  The board is tipping to the back.

  “Lance?”

  He hums.

  “You should probably move forward.”

  “Hm? Oh. Right. Yeah, I’ll move.” It comes out in one breathless murmur before the board rocks.

  Then it’s silent again. It’s not comfortable like the ones they would have when there’s a still in conversation as they’re lost in their own thoughts. This one is overwhelming, pressing down on everything with things left unsaid, dangling in the air and neither dares to reach. It’s electric, tense, chilly.

  _I love you_ , Keith almost says just to break the silence. “Are you looking forward to college?” is what he quietly asks.

  “Absolutely.” Lance is just as quiet. “We’re finally going to live at the same place, you know? I’ll get to see you all the time. And your friends.”

  “You’re not scared?”

  “Hell yeah, I am. I’m man enough to admit that. I’ve never been so far away from my family before.”

  “Veronica will be there. Plus, you can always come back to visit.”

  Another hum.

  Keith looks out to the waves washed silver by the moonlight. A drop of rain falls on his shoulder, then another. “I’m going to ask you a question. Will you answer honestly?”

  A pause then a tentative, “Sure.”

  “Do you not like the fact that I’m gay?”

  Keith feels him blanch in the way the board rocks. “What? Of course not. Keith, that’s not- I don’t have a problem with you being gay. I just-”

  “What?”

  Lance exhales. “Look, I’m sorry for all the times I talked to you about girls. I just- I should’ve realised sooner. Well, actually Pidge told me you’re probably gay but I didn’t believe her. I probably made you really uncomfortable for so long.”

  Oh. Keith huffs a laugh, half in relief and half to reprimand himself for thinking bad about Lance even for a second. He doesn’t have time to debate whether he should before he scoots backwards a little. He freezes when Lance’s breaths fall on his neck, knocking some sense into him. “I can still tell if a girl is good looking or not,” Keith says carefully. “I just don’t necessarily want to kiss them. Or do anything.”

  “Yeah, but I just. I feel like an idiot.”

  Keith turns his head so fast he gives himself whiplash. “Stop-”

  Lance is actually leaning really, really close. Keith can see the constellation of freckles across his nose, extending over his cheeks and count the individual strands of dark eyelashes. His mouth goes dry at the way Lance watches him, unguarded and gentle. And his eyes land on Keith’s mouth.

  Then his lips follow. They’re soft and warm and light, barely more than a lingering touch that sets Keith’s body on fire with want. He doesn’t move, doesn’t want this fragile, fragile moment to shatter. But he wants _more_. He’s wanted more for so long and it aches.

  He tilts his head up slowly, pressing their mouths firmer. Lance’s hands come to cup his jaw, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones and he moves his lips in slow sweeps that makes Keith dizzy. Keith’s body is twisted and it’s awkward kissing Lance like this. No, he wants this to be good.

  He brings himself back to his senses long enough to pull away from Lance and swing his legs over the boards so he faces Lance, the surfboard protesting with his movements. For a terrifying moment that Lance is watching him do all that, Keith fears that Lance would say this is all a mistake, would apologise and pretend it never happened and Keith would be left hanging off the edge of a cliff, unsure whether to fall or climb back up.

  But Lance grabs his face and kisses him again, sighing against his lips.

  And the world is right again.

  One kiss turns into two and then three, hands on thighs and stomachs and holding the back of the other’s neck because somehow it’s still not enough. Somewhere along the way Keith asks himself, “What the fuck am I doing?” but the thought drifts away when Lance’s tongue sweeps across his bottom lip, asking for permission and Keith lets him with a soft moan he’s too intoxicated to hold back.

  _He’s never been able to deny Lance anything._

  When Lance finally pulls back, Keith is about to pass out. It takes a moment for the world to stop spinning and for Keith to retrieve his hands from Lance’s soft hair. The entire thing would be embarrassing – he’d just totally made out with his best friend and he liked it – if Lance isn’t flushed and breathing hard too, making no move to take his hands off Keith’s waist. His eyes shine so bright under the moonlight.

  “That was...” Keith trails, watching for Lance’s reaction. “That was pretty gay.”

  Lance smiles, leans forward and meets Keith’s forehead halfway. “Bi.”

  “Really?” It can’t be real. He’s gonna wake up probably harbouring a painful hard on. “Since when?”

  “Since forever. Pretty much everyone knows but I came out before we started talking throughout the year so you didn’t know. And after that... Well, I didn’t really think it was that important because I preferred girls until...you.”

  Keith pushes Lance’s shoulder. “Wasn’t that important? Seriously? You have no idea how much I beat myself up because I thought I was wasting time on someone I had no chance with.”

  Lance smirks and Keith hears the question before it’s asked. “How long have you liked me for?”

  Keith rolls his eyes. “Asshole.”

  Lance laughs and nudges his face into Keith’s neck, muttering against his skin, “Yeah, but I’m a gorgeous asshole and you like me, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “ _Keith_ ,” he whines, tightening his grip on Keith’s waist.

  He places his hands on the other boy’s back, feeling the smoothness of his skin. “Yes, Lance. I do.”

  A kiss on Keith’s neck. “I like you too. So we’re dating? Like, I can hold your hand and kiss you whenever I want and call you ‘babe’?”

  Keith freezes. “You... You want to do that?”

  Lance pulls away and looks at Keith with a small knot between his eyebrows like a kicked puppy. “You don’t want to?”

  “No, I do. It’s just- Lance, it’s fine around your family and friends but I don’t know if I’m ready for the world to know.” It took him years to admit to himself. Letting everyone know is a terrifying thought.

  Lance smiles softly and presses a kiss to Keith’s forehead. “Alright then. We’ll let everyone know when we’re ready. But I would like to keep kissing you when we’re alone. Is that okay?”

  Keith answers with a chaste kiss.

  Around them, late summer rains drizzle, little droplets catching in their hair and on their skin, glistening under moonlight. Keith sits on the board, wrapped in Lance’s arms, trying to remember a time he didn’t like Lance. It’s impossible. Maybe right from the moment the ball hit his head he’s loved Lance; the way he’s so easy to be around, the way he makes Keith feel appreciated, wanted, accepted, and how every moment with him feels new and exciting even if they’ve done the same things dozens of times.

  This is a story already nine years in the making and Keith feels like it’s only just beginning.

 

[December 2018]

  Lance is trying to get him under a mistletoe.

  So naturally Keith has been avoiding them all evening.

  Lance sulks up to Keith who’s raiding the McClain family fridge in Florida, mainly as an excuse to get a break from Lance’s huge family all talking over each other or children yelling and running around the house. Lance bumps his hips into Keith’s, pouting.

  “Were you some sort of eel in your past life?” he asks and for a second Keith fears this is going to be another one of his pick-up lines. “You keep slipping out of my hands.”

  He laughs, closing the refrigerator door without getting anything. “Why are you trying so hard to get me under mistletoes? Everyone here knows we’re dating. You can just kiss me.”

  Lance squeaks in frustration, drawing closer to Keith. “Because it’s romantic! I can just kiss you any day of the year. Mistletoes are for Christmas only.”

  Keith smirks, backing Lance against the kitchen counter. Lance narrows his eyes but lets himself be trapped between Keith’s arms, hips flushed against each others’. “So you would be opposed to me kissing you for no reason?”

  “Yes.”

  Keith shrugs with an, “Okay then,” and then leaves the kitchen, trying very hard to not break out into a huge grin at his boyfriend’s outraged splutters and crying, “Keith, you dick! You can’t just do something like that and leave me!”

  From two rooms away, Mrs McClain yells at Lance for his choice of words before she goes back to herding the kids to bed, scolding them in Spanish.

  Keith comes back to the living room where the Christmas tree sits proudly, decorated with homemade baubles and ornaments. He looks around the room for free space but all the couches are taken up, everyone lost in conversation while the TV is forgotten.

  He’s about to call Rachel when arms wrap around him from behind, a chin dropping onto his shoulder. “You’re such a killjoy,” Lance hisses. “I just want to do something romantic for my first Christmas with my boyfriend within the privacy of my own house but no. Worst boyfriend ever.”

  Keith turns and raises an eyebrow. “Then you don’t want your other present?”

  Lance perks up. “You got me something else?”

  Keith has already given him the pair of Nike joggers Lance has been drooling over for the past two weeks and now worships like a deity, complete with a shrine and everything. He flicks Lance’s nose. “If I’m the worst boyfriend ever then I don’t need to give you another gift.”

  Lance kisses his cheek with an innocent smile. “I don’t remember saying that. Not at all. What did you get me?”

  Keith turns to find Rachel already next to them, grinning. He gives her his phone.

  “What’s happening?” Lance asks.

  Keith doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes his hand and leads them outside where the Christmas lights flicker on neatly trimmed bushes. Rachel assumes position, holding up his phone.

  “Keith, what the-”

  “I’m going to kiss you.”

  Lance looks down sceptically. “You want to kiss me and you want Rachel to take a picture of that. Babe, you don’t even like taking selfies with me. Wait, is the picture the present?”

  “Sort of.”

  Without further explanation, Keith pulls Lance in for a kiss, closing his eyes and trying not to think too much about the fact that Rachel is not only watching but taking a photo of them. For a few moments, Lance is stiff and reluctant but it doesn’t take long for him to melt and kiss back, cupping Keith’s face.

  The camera clicks.

  Keith pulls away, face burning hot. He takes the phone back from Rachel who gives two thumbs up and a wink before shooting back inside, claiming she’s getting cavities. The photo looks so much better than he anticipated.

  “Damn,” Lance says, slinging his arm around Keith’s shoulder. “If we look like that every time we kiss, I suddenly feel sorry that our friends had to put up with us. I mean, I’m not gonna stop but damn. We are everyone’s relationship goals.”

  Keith’s heart thunders in his chest as he opens Facebook. Lance straightens as he catches on.

  “Keith...” His voice shakes.

  Before he can chicken out, Keith posts the picture with the caption: _Merry Christmas to my amazing boyfriend._ Out in the world for everyone to see. Finally he dares to look up.

  Lance sucks in a breath, staring at the phone with moisture in his eyes. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “Keith, really?”

  He gives a non-committal shrug but Lance’s reaction is everything; the shock, the disbelief, the happiness in the tears in his eyes. Warmth spreads through Keith’s chest, reaching his fingers and toes. He’s been planning this for weeks now, building up the courage to announce to the world that he’s very much in love with Lance. “Do you like the gift?”

  Lance laughs a little hysterically, pushing his fingers into his hair. “Like the gift? Keith, that is the best thing you could’ve given me! I can actually show you off to people now and hold your hand. _Holy shit_.”

  He hoots, picks Keith up by the waist and spins him around, almost sending both of them toppling over. “Thank you.”

  He doesn’t let Keith down, which is fine. Keith just bends down and kisses his boyfriend again. “Merry Christmas, Lance.”

  “Merry Christmas, Keith.”

  Lance looks like he’s going in for another kiss but pulls back abruptly with a gasp. He drops Keith. “I’ve got more friends than you on Facebook. I’ve gotta share it.” Then he’s sprinting back into the house yelling, “KEITH KOGANE IS MY BOYFRIEND!”

  Keith watches him go, laughing. Maybe he should’ve done this ages ago if it makes his boyfriend this happy. He looks down at the photo, at notifications that pop up and he is forever grateful for that first trip to Cuba when he was nine.

  Keith whispers, “Thanks, Dad.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I hope I was able to handle this story delicately. I don't mean to offend anyone and if I have, I apologise. Please let me know what you thought.
> 
> You can stalk me on Tumblr at [hano-does-fandoms](https://hano-does-fandoms.tumblr.com)
> 
> [Update: I forgot to mention that I don't live in the US and have very little clue about how the school systems work there. But seeing as no one has yet mentioned any blaringly obvious inaccuracies so I think I did decent research.]


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